New Samsung hard drive sports 1TB per platter

Samsung is showing off new high-density platters at the CeBIT show in Germany. According to Heise, the Spinpoint maker has managed to create a 2TB hard drive using only two discs. Do the math, and that's one terabyte per platter—a hefty increase over the 750GB media lurking inside Western Digital's Caviar Green 3TB.

Like the Caviar Green, this latest Samsung drive has a 5,400-RPM spindle speed. New platter tech is easier to deploy at slower speeds, which may be why we've yet to see Western Digital put its 750GB platters inside a 7,200-RPM Caviar Black.

Although no official release date is mentioned, the terabyte platters are due to be available in hard drives this year. Samsung is reportedly working on stacking up to four of 'em, so we could see a 4TB drive before long. Drives with fewer platters tend to be quieter than those with more, making the lower capacity points in what may be called the EcoGreen F6 family particularly attractive for secondary storage and home-theater PCs.

Not content to offer high-density platters in 3.5" hard drives, Samsung also showed a Spinpoint M8 notebook drive with two platters and a terabyte of total capacity. 2.5" terabytes typically use three platters and a thicker 12.5-mm casing that's incompatible with most notebook drive bays, but the M8 is a standard 9.5-mm model. You probably don't want to use the M8 as your notebook's primary hard drive, though; like the EcoGreen, its platters spin at only 5,400 RPM. Thanks to Engadget for the tip.